And the Camel's Broken Back
by MissAnnThropic
Summary: When Dean saw Sam using his mind powers, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.


Title: And the Camel's Broken Back  
Author: MissAnnThropic  
Spoilers: It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester  
Summary: When Dean saw Sam using his mind powers, it was the straw that broke the camel's back.  
Disclaimer: As if anyone is surprised, but none of it's mine.  
With much gratitude: I want to thank my techno-lohtar, Sierra Phoenix, who makes posting of my fics possible.

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There was no way to know how long Dean and Sam might have stood there staring at each other if the crypt wasn't burning. Sam was standing over the corpse of the poor bastard art teacher, so recently Samhain, watching Dean with that pitiful 'don't hate me, Dean' look on his face.

Dean was just outright pissed. Livid. The one thing he asked Sam not to do, the _one thing_, and he just couldn't follow orders. Never could. Years ago that had been their father's bane, and now it looked like it would be Dean's.

No wonder John used to get so angry at Sam… angry enough that the two wouldn't speak for years. Right then, Dean had to keep his mouth clamped tightly shut, because if he talked to Sam he'd probably hit Sam… hard.

The smell of smoke told Dean the clock was running. Sam was still standing there like a gangly, six-foot-four fawn that had lost its mother, watching Dean with watery eyes and oozing that wounded puppy aura he had mastered long ago. Might have worked to temper Dean's anger if the kid wasn't sporting a bleeding nose from his little mind trick on the demon he'd just cast down.

Dean stormed into the room, came to an abrupt halt just within the door, and surveyed the body, the room, the walls, the floor… he looked everywhere but at Sam.

Clearly not aware of just how thin the ice was, Sam whimpered, "Dean…"

Dean pointedly ignored his brother's plaintive appeal, continued his search, and found what he was looking for near the far wall. He went over, retrieved the dagger, and stuffed it in his jacket pocket.

"… Dean…" Sam took a step toward his brother, seeking the warm fuzzy brotherly love that he most definitely wasn't going to get. It was all Dean could do not to use the damn knife on his own flesh and blood.

"Time to go," Dean said curtly.

"Dean… I can explain."

"Tomb burning, stuff it. Let's go." Dean turned on his heel and stormed out, counting on Sam to follow him, though god knows the kid couldn't seem to do what was in his best interest even if explicitly told.

Sam must have known he was in deep shit and didn't launch into another one of his righteous soliloquies. He trailed after Dean quickly, like a chastised dog slinking behind a furious owner. Not too far off on that one. If Dean had a newspaper handy, he'd be rolling it up and beating Sam about the head and shoulders with it.

They would have a good, long, vicious shouting match about this back at the hotel. They'd both be hoarse from this one. Sam might shed more of that precious demon-tainted blood of his before the night was over.

They passed the burning crypt and left the tomb, the night air a cold and stark contrast to the stuffy heat behind them.

Usually, they'd hit a bar and celebrate their macabre victory. Tonight, Dean would taste only bile in the back of his throat.

"Dean…" Sam implored again from behind his brother.

"I swear to god, Sam," Dean growled without turning to face his brother or even slowing his pace, "if I look at you right now I'm going to do something you and I will both regret. You better hope I'm not armed when we talk about this. So shut up and keep moving."

For a few moments, Sam did. Then the kid just had to open his mouth again. "_Dean_, please…"

Dean didn't respond this time.

Sam's footfalls behind Dean slowed. Dean's jaw tightened. This would be when Sammy the perpetual little brother dug in his heels like a freaking dog being dragged to the vet's and demanded they have their little moment now. That only pissed Dean off more, because Sam was the kind of dog one couldn't budge; not if he got it in his head he wasn't going to go.

"_Sam_…" Dean snarled dangerously.

A tense second of silence was followed by Sam's voice… taut. Not with emotion, but with pain. "… _Dean_…"

Dean stopped and jerked around. Sam was pale, even by the light of the moon. His posture was bowed and hunched in distress. Sam grimaced, grabbed his head, and his knees buckled.

"_Shit_!" Dean rushed to Sam as the younger man swayed on his knees in the graveyard grass, face twisted in agony and breaths coming in hisses between his teeth.

Dean touched Sam's shoulder, and the man collapsed. It was all Dean could do to slowly lower Sam's hulking mass to the ground, where he curled up in a ball.

"Damnit, Sam!" Dean barked, but there was more fear to his tone than anger.

Sam shivered and a tight, strained noise came from the back of his throat. He was trying not to cry out.

Dean planted a palm in his brother's shoulder and shoved. Sam resisted at first, but Dean was persistent and succeeded in rolling Sam on to his back. Sam was holding his temples and baring his teeth like a feral beast.

"Let me take a look," Dean commanded and batted Sam's hands away from his face. Sam obeyed blearily, and Dean frowned down at his brother's face. Sam was disoriented, _far_ from lucid, eyes rolling and tracking phantom shapes in the night. His nose was bleeding anew. Dean cursed and grabbed his brother's face in his hands to try and get Sam's threadbare attention. "Sam… Sam, can you hear me?"

Sam writhed on the ground and didn't answer.

"Fuck," Dean bit out gruffly. He had precious few options. One: call the paramedics and have them haul Sam's ass to the emergency room and have a good ol' time trying to explain how he'd been hurt in a way that _didn't_ get them thrown in the nut hut but _did_ give the doctors enough information to be able to possibly help. Two: stay with Sam and see if he came around enough to help Dean get him back to the hotel, because Sam was too much for Dean to drag or carry very far.

Training told Dean that hospitals were best avoided; hunters cared for themselves and their own. Dean surveyed the graveyard to see if they were being watched. It seemed empty, but the fire would soon bring the fire department, and they would definitely notice a guy sprawled on the graves like a stroke victim.

Moaning and incoherent mumbling drew Dean's attention back to his brother. Sam looked a little less flipped out, though hardly with it. "Sam?"

Sam blinked hard and slowly several times.

"Sam?"

"… Ruby…?"

Dean scowled. "Okay, that hurts. Sam, come on, man, wake up."

The young man's vision seemed to slowly clear and the contortion of pain expression relaxed into something more Sam-like. With a groan, Sam rolled away from Dean on to his side, his curved back facing his brother. Dean frowned but hung back.

Sam's breathing evened out and the tight lines of his body changed.

"Sam?" Dean ventured carefully.

Sam flinched at Dean's voice, and the older Winchester didn't know if it was because the sound itself hurt or if it was the person talking that was the problem.

Sam struggled to push himself up into a sitting position, back still toward his brother.

Dean leaned closer and clasped Sam on the shoulder. "Dude, what's going on?"

Sam tightened at the touch then turned to face Dean. He looked bewildered and confused. "I…" he looked around. "We're in a graveyard."

"Uh… yeah."

Sam swallowed, considered that information at length, then rubbed at one eye with the heel of his hand.

"You need to go to the hospital?" Dean asked.

"Huh?"

"You just had some kind of seizure… looked like some pretty heavy stuff." Dean's worry edged back to fury. "Not that I'm surprised given your little parlor trick in there."

Sam dropped his hand and looked up at Dean in bafflement. His brows knit and he looked back over his shoulder at the burning crypt they'd left. The sight seemed to bring it all back to Sam. Sam frowned and shook his head. "No… I'm all right."

"Well, you don't look it."

Sam closed his eyes wearily. "Just… I need to rest."

Dean glowered and considered his brother closely. Not over by a long shot, but this was hardly the place. "Fine, come on." Dean stood and waited for Sam to join him.

It was like watching a baby find its walking legs for the first time. Sam got up with a lot of bracing using his hands on the ground, then stood on wobbly knees that seemed ready to give out on him at any second. It shocked Dean when Sam stayed upright.

Though he was still furious, he wasn't keen on watching Sam stumble over every headstone between here and the Impala, so with a long-suffering sigh he went to Sam's side and tucked up under one arm. Sam was more than willing to put some of his weight on his brother and Dean hauled Sam's sorry ass to the car.

Before Dean could go for the passenger side door, Sam flung himself out of Dean's grasp against the car, opened the back door, and practically fell in across the backseat. Dean scowled, mighty unhappy, but Sam was flat on his back with one arm crooked to cover his face and completely impervious to his brother's glare.

Dean shut the door, walked around to the driver's side, and got in. They left the burning tomb behind and struck out into the night.

It was a painfully quiet ride back to the hotel. Sam didn't say a word, and Dean was now too pissed and too worried to make small talk. Every once in a while Dean glanced back over the seat to check that Sam was breathing, but neither man was eager to talk.

At the hotel, Dean turned off the car and twisted to look at his brother in the back. Sam was still as death, in the same position he'd fallen into back at the cemetery.

"Hey… Sam. We're here."

Sam unfolded from his sprawl, moving like a man with a vicious hangover. He climbed painstakingly out of the car and stumbled to the hotel door. There he stopped like a drunken trick-or-treater and waited.

Dean sighed in annoyance and concern as he left the car and opened the door for Sam.

Sam shuffled in without hitting the lights, found a bed by feel alone, and crawled into it. By the time Dean closed the door and turned on the lights, Sam was curled on his side with his head buried in a pillow. Curled up on Dean's bed, to be precise.

"Hey… you're bleeding on my pillow," Dean groused. Not that he cared so much about the pillow, but he wanted to judge how much of a reaction he could get out of his brother. Sam's sudden and stark detachment from his surroundings was scaring Dean just a little.

Sam grumbled but didn't move a muscle. Well and utterly passed out.

Dean stood there a moment, torn. The ambulance was still an option. What if Sam was really damaged in the head? This could be something that killed him in the night while Dean was debating his choices. He could call Bobby, but the hunter in Dean made him wary of making the depths of his brother's freaky abilities known to another hunter. It was _Bobby_, but Dean knew how he'd feel if it was anyone but Sam. Hunting went deep; Dean would be damned if anyone else saw Sam as something to be hunted.

Then again, Sam looked a little better already. Some more color to his face, and he wasn't twisted in crippling pain anymore. He looked more wrung out than on the brink of death. Dean went to the bathroom, wetted a washcloth, and returned to the bed his brother had appropriated. He rolled Sam on to his back again and began to gently wash the blood off his face. He took his time, and in that time while tending the mindless task, he was thinking.

Not for the first time, he wondered just what his little brother had been through while he was in hell. It had been awful for Dean, but he had to realize it had to be a shitty situation for Sam, too. It had brought Sam to this, after all. Maybe, in a twisted, screwed up way, Sam's dabbling in the dark practices was Dean's fault.

While he was finding ways to twist the situation so that Sam was still innocent little Sammy, said innocent began to come to.

Dean held in check a sigh of relief. "Sam?"

Sam peered up at Dean through slitted eyes. "… Dean…?"

"Who else were you expecting?" Dean cracked back… and instantly regretted his words. It wasn't as flippant a question as he thought or would have hoped… Sam _might_ have been expecting Ruby.

From the look in his narrowed eyes, Sam briefly had the same thought. Mercifully, he didn't ask it. "Did we get it?"

Dean smirked tightly. "_You_ got it… by doing the one thing I told you _not_ to."

Sam squirmed as best his big, momentarily uncooperative body could. "Sorry…"

Dean sighed.

"No choice… would have killed me, Dean…"

Dean dropped the washcloth on the nightstand and raked a hand wearily over his face. "What the hell happened, man?"

"… lost the knife…"

"No, I mean _this_." Dean gestured at weak and helpless Sam Winchester. "You always take a header after you do that exorcism hand thing?"

Sam gave it long thought. "… No… this one was the worst… usually just a headache."

"Well, I'd say you overdid it this time. Do you understand now how dangerous this is?"

Sam grew very still and closed his eyes. "Always understood."

That floored Dean. _What_?! "Then what the _hell_, Sam?"

"Yeah… you were in hell… didn't matter."

Dean froze and stared down at his little brother in dawning comprehension. "Geez, Sam… even if I _never_ came back, _not_ turning your brains into a hamburger slushie would matter!"

"Yeah, sure, Dean."

Dean knew the voice of Sam Winchester humoring his dense older brother. He didn't like it one bit.

"You listen to me; I didn't make that deal, my life for yours, so you could go to the dark side."

"'Kay, Obi."

"Damnit, Sam! I mean it."

Sam slowly opened his eyes and pinned Dean with a look so vulnerable, so forlorn, so _wounded_, that Dean was struck silent. Sam licked his lips and croaked, "Had to do it without you, Dean… did the best I could…"

Dean felt himself sag, anger gone and replaced with sadness. It was a terrifying way for Sam to let Dean know he needed his older brother. Needed Dean for Sam to save himself from stepping over a very fine line.

Dean reached up and gently cupped Sam's chin. It was the 'gently' that caught Sam's attention… Dean didn't do chick flick moments, and when he _did_ they were significant.

Dean looked his brother right in the eye. "I'm here now, Sam. You're not alone anymore."

Sam's eyes glistened wetly, he reached up to clasp Dean's forearm, and he gave it a frighteningly strong squeeze. He did not let go his hold on his brother.

Dean cleared his throat so he wouldn't betray any girly feelings in his voice. "So, this is what we're going to do… you and me, like before, tracking down these evil bastards _without_ the freaky mind tricks. We didn't need them before, we don't need them now. You and me, we're all we need, right?"

Sam shut his eyes and quickly brought up a hand to wipe away the one traitorous tear that slipped down his temple. He nodded stiltedly. "Yeah… okay."

Dean nodded and slowly pulled his hand back from Sam's face. Sam's grip on his arm didn't release right away, held on a second longer before letting his brother go.

"You gonna be okay?" Dean asked.

Sam's lips quirked in a tight and fleeting smirk. "Yeah."

"Because you look like someone who's had his sac used as a punching bag."

Sam grimaced and snorted on a laugh as he gingerly rolled over on to his stomach and burrowed into Dean's pillow. The younger Winchester was asleep before Dean could come up with anything else to try and entice a chuckle or smile out of his brother.

Dean studied Sam a long time in the silence of their shared hotel room.

Finally, he rose and methodically removed Sam's dirty shoes and flung them to the side of the room. That done, he took the comforter from Sam's bed (now Dean's) and draped it over his little brother. Hell and back aside, it was familiar and comforting; Dean couldn't count the number of times he'd taken care of Sam like this.

That was Dean's purpose, his reason, his gift and burden all in one.

With his little brother as settled and comfortable as he was likely to get, Dean went to the window and sat in the chair positioned at a perfect look-out angle.

He'd watch over Sam, protect him, like always. That was the enigma that was Dean Winchester, and Dean wouldn't want it any other way.

END


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